It’s no secret that I’m enthusiastic about plenty of this 12 months’s videogame choices. Dragon Age: The Veilguard, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2, in a single day sensation Supervive – whereas 2025 is the ‘large 12 months’ for videogames, the latter half of 2024’s wanting fairly rattling good. However amid all these adventures – a few of which I’ve been ready for for years – there’s Stalker 2. As somebody who has performed Shadow of Chernobyl many occasions, I’ve been silently excited for its extremely anticipated sequel; it’s not one many would placed on the ‘record of video games Lauren likes,’ however it’s there, belief me.
My pretty colleague Ed Smith performed Stalker 2 again at Gamescom final 12 months, calling it a “brutal, merciless, and deliciously real looking shooter” and likening it to Fallout and Darkish Souls. Since then I’ve been on the sting of my seat, ready for extra particulars to slither out of their radioactive hellholes and devour me entire. I’ve had my fingers to my racing pulse, hoping to catch a glimpse of what GSC Recreation World’s FPS sport has to supply. After a collection of hype trailers and the official Stalker 2 launch date reveal, I had a sense that Summer season Recreation Fest could be the second that I lastly obtained to go hands-on, and I used to be proper.
For causes that I’ll preserve secret for now, I’m thrust out of the again of a truck and into the center of The Zone, the ever-changing radioactive wasteland that frames Stalker 2’s motion. It’s desolate. The soil is blackened; the sky has morphed right into a raging thunderstorm, with sparks of lightning drawing fault strains throughout sheets of thick cloud. It’s loud, it’s violent, and but what’s extra scary are the moments of deafening silence; oppressive, eerie, and fraught with stress.
Stalker 2 begins as most RPGs do – discover your (presumably lifeless) contact. I tiptoe by a collection of viaducts, water sloshing gently at my heels as I navigate my manner into The Zone itself. I drop down and am instantly set upon by one thing, which I dispatch with a couple of frantic swings of my fight knife. I’m barely 5 minutes into the sport, and I’m letting out audible squeaks which can be hopefully being drowned out by the hustle and bustle round me.
Beastie felled, I proceed on my mission to what seems to be a bunker turned science lab. As anticipated, my contact could be very lifeless, however he does occur to have a mysterious piece of package that rapidly turns into integral to my survival. Our bodies efficiently looted and new, larger gun outfitted, I make my manner again into the night time.
I’m monitoring an artifact, you see, characterised by glowing blue lightning and a complete lot of weirdness. As I plunge into the center of swampy water, I can virtually really feel the radiation seeping into my bones, leaving me questioning whether or not or not this odd little contraption is definitely price it. Ten years of my life down the drain, I scoop it up and cargo it into my stock, which is a field administration system akin to video games like Diablo, in addition to what we’ve seen earlier than within the collection’ earlier entries.
As I clear the radioactive lake and try to type out my gear, one thing lunges at me. I say one thing, as a result of it’s invisible. OG gamers will instantly acknowledge the Bloodsucker, however given it was making an attempt to tear me aside, I wasn’t precisely making an attempt to work out what it was. I hearth a slew of bullets into it in panic, rapidly realizing I’ve no ammo left. Its tentacled jaws wrap round my face, and for the primary time in Stalker 2, I meet my grisly demise.
All of this stems from making an attempt to type out my stock in the midst of the open-world; one thing that’s important given your restricted carry house and the JENGA-style mini-game you must play to get all the things to suit. It’s a small a part of a much bigger image, however survival is crucial in Stalker 2. A second of hesitation will earn fast punishment; pausing for one second will possible finish in your premature loss of life. In Stalker 2, actually all the things desires to kill you – you’re utterly and completely alone
Spherical two, then: Bloodstalker, one, Lauren zero. This time, nonetheless, I’m ready. I snag the artifact and lift my weapon, stalking the creature because it stalks me. It leaps, and I headshot, presumably taking a bit out of it. Just a few extra pictures, and it’s lifeless – however so am I. I’m perplexed, then I notice – the water is radioactive; slowly however absolutely, it’s been consuming away at my well being bar which was already dented by the Bloodstalker. A mild reminder to myself that all the things – actually all the things – desires to kill me.
The truth is, even the sport itself does. As I respawn I die again and again, and I’m rapidly saved by a member of the dev staff who notes that, as a result of the Bloodsucker and I died on the identical time, the sport saved my loss of life sequence because the autosave. I load again in on an earlier save, setting me again a couple of paces, which, whereas not the attending devs’ fault, is a bit of irritating – particularly whenever you solely have half-hour with the sport.
My remaining time is spent heading in the direction of one other anomaly; a much bigger one this time. As I plant my useful new contraption into the bottom and rush to security, the soil turns into charged with electrical energy, that means that I would like to observe my footing so as to retrieve it. My time in The Zone ends as I pull the needle from the bottom, blue static dissipating round me. It’s virtually lovely in its personal, macabre type of manner.
Recreation crash apart, my expertise with Stalker 2 is all the things I’d hoped for. Fight is gradual, methodical and gritty, the monsters are genuinely horrifying, and the atmosphere is gorgeous and deadly in equal measure.
What Stalker 2 does so properly, nonetheless, is create that sense of pure isolation and full terror. A fast look over your shoulder isn’t sufficient when invisible enemies can seem out of skinny air, and conserving your eyes forward means chances are you’ll miss the murky poisonous waste that swims round your ft. Nowhere is protected in The Zone.
And but, I’m someway compelled again in the direction of its depths. I need to discover, I need to loot; and I’m keen to die for it, again and again. The guts of Chernobyl awaits, and I’m decided to claw it out and stow it in my stock when September lastly rolls round.
